Balfour Beatty’s £83m Forres Academy: design and delivery notes for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Balfour Beatty has secured an £83m contract from Hub North Scotland to build the 12,143 m² Forres Academy secondary school in Moray for Moray Council, designed for 1,120 pupils under Phase 3 of the Scottish Government’s Learning Estate Investment Programme. The campus will include a full-size 3G artificial grass pitch and new car parking, replacing the existing school on the site. Delivery will draw on Balfour Beatty’s previous Moray school projects at Elgin High, Lossiemouth High and Linkwood Primary, with Hub North Scotland signalling additional training, employment and community benefits.
Technical Brief
- Balfour Beatty’s Scottish business unit will lead delivery, leveraging regional supply chain and labour.
- Legacy commitments include formal training and employment opportunities tied directly to construction activities.
Our Take
The involvement of Hub North Scotland and Moray Council aligns with a pattern in Scotland where local authority education schemes are being bundled through hub vehicles, which typically favour contractors with a strong track record on schools such as Elgin High School and Lossiemouth High School.
Alongside Balfour Beatty’s HS2-related work via Balfour Beatty VINCI, this Moray education contract diversifies its order book away from rail megaproject exposure and should support the “high single digit” profit growth guidance reported in early May 2026.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
